Efe chased the prince through a labyrinth of roots and shadows, the mirror mask flashing like lightning. Thorns tore his skin, but he followed the boy's footprints in the soft earth. At the heart of the grove stood a shrine older than Benin itself, its altar slick with fresh blood.
The prince knelt before it, mirror mask reflecting Efe's own terrified face. Osaro emerged from the darkness, the sixth mask in his hands—carved from a single piece of ebony, its surface writhing with living shadows. "The child was easy," he said. "Children believe what they see."
Efe lunged, but the grove fought for its master. Roots tripped him, branches clawed his eyes. Osaro placed the ebony mask on the altar beside a seventh, unfinished, its eye sockets empty. "One more soul," he crooned. "Then the Oba falls, and I rise."
Queen Idia's horse thundered into the grove, her dagger drawn. She saw her son and screamed, a sound that shattered mirrors. The mask fell from the prince's face, revealing eyes rolled white. Idia cut the roots binding Efe and together they dragged the boy away as Osaro laughed from the shrine.
They burst from the grove at dawn, the prince limp in his mother's arms. Behind them, fire erupted—Mama Izu's work, her potions igniting the ancient trees. The grove burned with a sound like a thousand screams, masks melting into grotesque tears.
But Osaro was gone, the seventh mask with him. Efe found only a single white cowrie, warm as flesh, and the knowledge that the final piece waited in the one place no one would look—the Oba's own crown.
The city mourned its burned grove but celebrated the prince's return. Efe stood before the Oba, exhausted, and told of the seventh mask. The king touched his coral crown, eyes narrowing. "You accuse me?" Efe shook his head. "I accuse the carver who hides in plain sight."
That night Aruosa's body was found floating in the river, throat cut, the fifth mask clutched in his dead hands. A note pinned to his chest: Traitors die first. Osaro's work, or the Oba's? Efe could not tell. The drums beat uncertainty, and the final mask waited.